What do a 25-year-old college student, a 37-year-old senior digital designer, a 46-year-old record press operator and a 51-year-old resource coordinator all have in common?
A love of DJing.
To these passionate disc jockeys, their craft is much more than beatmatching and smooth transitions; it's fostering connections with crowds and bridging the gap between generations.
Emilio Román
Among the younger demographic of local DJs is Emilio Román, a 25-year-old UF food and resource economics senior. He said Gainesville has the perfect atmosphere to pursue DJing, and many college students seem eager to join the community.
From a Gasparilla rooftop gig to a fraternity house tailgate party, the venues Román performs at don’t matter much to him. What he loves most about DJing is his audiences — getting the crowd to move through his carefully curated playlists.
“Everyone can learn how to mix, but what really differentiates you between other DJs is your song selection, how you can really test the waters and see the energy of the crowd,” he said.
Román said while there are opportunities for Gainesville residents to launch their DJing pursuits, local DJs aren’t paid adequately. Making a living off the craft in Gainesville, he added, is hardly possible.
Though his sets feature popular house music, Román sticks to his Latino roots and draws a following of Latino listeners. Some of the venues he has played at include Cantina Añejo, The Range and Downtown Fats.
Still, he and his friends hope to branch out of Midtown and downtown and begin frequenting spaces like cafes and flower shops.
DJ Wax Atom
With over 20 years on Román, 46-year-old Bobby Harper has pursued DJing locally since he was 18. Known as DJ Wax Atom, he enjoys sharing new music through his sets. As his day job, he works as the lead record press operator at Audiodrome in Alachua.
He often discovers new tracks digging through hip-hop samples and trudging through bins at local record shops like Sunshine Records. Focusing on the music of his youth — soul, funk and hip-hop — Harper blends the sounds of the past with the sounds of today.
“I feel like there's a way that you can bridge the gap between new music and old music that people may not know as well, but there's a way that you can play them together and have people appreciate both,” he said.
Through music, Harper is able to share a piece of himself — a piece of his youth, a piece of his taste and a piece of his mind. His alias originated as a play on the title of the 1998 movie “Patch Adams.” Harper said the name Wax Atom has grown to take on a deeper meaning.
“I feel like I'm just a small piece of playing the music,” Harper said. “It's not really about me. It's like, I'm the atom, the small part of a larger thing.”
Kane Pour
Another piece of this community is Kane Pour, a member of Drum & Bass Pro Shop, a local electronic music trio. To him, Gainesville’s experimental scene has always been one in which he felt he could express himself.
As a Gainesville native, 37-year-old Pour grew up on punk and said rock has been the dominant genre locally for some time. But the lack of competition and the community’s passion for creating and supporting each other have birthed new scenes, he added.
Drum & Bass Pro Shop isn’t exactly a DJ ensemble, but Pour feels his group’s style fosters more interaction and spontaneity than DJing might.
“There’s a much more open set of possibilities in that space, especially when you're collaborating with two other people that are making their own decisions live,” he said. “We do a lot of things that are very improvisational.”
Drum & Bass Pro Shop have played at Big: Culture & Arts Festival and performed at venues like Baby J’s Bar, The Atlantic and The GEE, or Gainesville Event Emporium.
Pour said Drum & Bass Pro Shop is one of Gainesville’s few electronic groups that employ a hardware setup over laptops, as hardware allows more synchronicity among the members.
To Pour, a digital designer and live electronic music aficionado, Drum & Bass Pro Shop has been a passion project of his and the other members.
“We're not bringing a revolutionary sound, or a revolutionary interpretation of it, but we're kind of just letting the good times guide us,” he said.
Drum & Bass Pro Shop performed at Indie Demolition Night at Loosey’s Downtown Jan. 22, and one of the first to arrive at its set was Kieran Wevers. He was eager to witness his friends debut their new set.
Wevers is part of the local experimental electronic music scene himself and operates the plunderphonics — a genre constructed by sampling recognizable music — project called Work From Home.
Wevers, 25, has known the Drum & Bass Pro Shop lineup since they performed as solo musicians. He feels the trio works together perfectly.
“I appreciate seeing these guys do this very honed in skill and designate these tasks to each other,” he said.
A big influence on that scene, he said, is the other act that performed at the Jan. 22 show, Dunce Party.
Dunce Party
When Andrew Chadwick isn’t performing as a DJ known as Dunce Party, the 51-year-old works as a shared resource coordinator at UF Health Cancer Institute. His sets, he said, are built in response to the audience.
With over 300 shows under his belt, Chadwick is no stranger to adjusting on the fly — taking the vibe of the crowd to curate his selections and craft a memorable night. Once, Chadwick noticed someone dancing enthusiastically to a Ghanaian track he selected, so he made sure to include more music from that country.
Chadwick’s sets are also built in response to his DJ peers. Chadwick, along with several other Gainesville DJs, is a member of the DJ collective Easy Crew 352.
Sometimes during their sets, the Crew will go “two for two,” where they take turns selecting the music two tracks at a time. This fast-paced improvisational style can lead to moments of chaotic creativity, transcending a pre-made set.
“It's really fun to play with somebody else,” Chadwick said. “I mean, it's a conversation. It's a musical conversation. And the bond of playing music together is real. All singing along to the same song that we're feeling in the moment.”
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org and Christopher Rodriguez at crodriguez@alligator.org. Follow Isabel on X @isabelgkraby and Chris @chrisrodri29386.
Isabel is the The Alligator's Spring 2026 music reporter. She is a junior studying journalism at UF and is from Ormond Beach, FL. In her spare time, she loves going to concerts, crafting and practicing guitar.
